Continental summer tire comes top in ADAC tire test

In a joint test staged by the German, Austrian and Swiss automobile clubs, ADAC, ÖAMTC and TCS, Continental’s premium summer tires emerged with top marks. The ContiSportContact 5 in size 225/45 R 17 was best-in-test in its class, while the ContiPremiumContact 5 in size 185/65 R 15 was also rated “good” – the highest rating awarded by the ADAC. In all, the three automobile clubs put 32 different tires from European, American and Asian manufacturers through their paces, scrutinizing their performance on wet and dry roads, as well as in terms of ride quality, fuel economy and mileage.

Overall, in the 17-inch category, just four tires were awarded the highest rating, while eleven were classed as satisfactory “because they show slight or marked weaknesses in one or more of the criteria assessed,” as the experts put it. Owing to very poor performance in the wet, one product was rated no higher than “adequate”, and the testers had no option but to rate one low-price Asian tire “inadequate”. As in past years, the reason here was a very poor performance in the wet, where these tires reveal marked weaknesses.